the Poacher's Son (2010) (14 page)

"A deputy named Twombley went out to Rum Pond yesterday morning to talk to my dad. I don't know what information he had, but there was a fight, and Twombley arrested him. On the way back to Skowhegan, the cruiser went off the road and my dad escaped."

"The search--what they showed of it on TV--looked like a military operation."

"I was up there last night until late, but they sent me home."

"What for?"

"Because I'm the fugitive's son and they don't want me fucking up the investigation."

"But you're a game warden."

"I've also been telling people my dad's innocent."

"Oh." She began chewing on a troublesome cuticle. "Why do you think that?"

"My dad's no terrorist. You met him. Can you picture him getting involved in some plot to murder a police officer and intimidate Wendigo Timber?"

She looked doubtful. "You have to admit he's violent."

"He's a bar brawler. He doesn't care about politics. All he cares about is drinking and hunting and getting laid."

"Do you have any idea where he is?"

"None whatsoever. And I don't really care, either." I felt my face warm with blood. "I'm just trying to do my job and go on with my life."

"I don't believe that for a second."

"So don't. I don't even know why you came over here. It's hard enough seeing you again."

"How do you think I feel?"

"You're the one who left, Sarah."

She took a breath and put her palms flat on the table. "I didn't come over here to fight with you."

"So why did you then? Morbid curiosity?"

"Maybe I was lonely," she said. "Did that ever occur to you? I was thinking a lot about you even before this. And with your dad in the news now--it made me scared for you."

"Scared?"

"It's your dad, Mike. You can pretend like he's just some stranger, but you can't fool me. I know what that man did to you."

"What are you talking about? He didn't do anything to me."

She made a face. "He abandoned you. He broke up your family."

"My mom did that."

"But you blame him." Sarah wasn't crazy about my mom--she thought she was way too concerned about appearances and material possessions, ironically enough, considering her own tastes in shoes--but she liked my dad even less. After Sarah met him, she was convinced he was responsible for everything bad that had happened in their marriage.

"I think I'd rather fight with you than have you psychoanalyze me."

"Do you want me to go?"

"If you're going to lecture me, yes."

From the tightness of her jaw, I could see she was fighting to keep her emotions in check. After a long silence she said, "Do you mind if I use your bathroom first?"

"You know where it is."

After she left, I noticed how dusk was seeping into the house. The kitchen was practically dark. I got up and snapped on the light, but it was too bright, so I shut it off again. I didn't really want her to
leave, but I didn't want her to think she could just breeze back like nothing had changed.

When she came back from the bathroom she said, "I'm sorry, Mike. I don't know why I'm lecturing you. It's just really weird being back here. It feels familiar and strange at the same time."

"I know what you mean."

She lifted her beer bottle, but it was empty. "Do you want to go get some dinner? We could go to the Square Deal."

"I'll cook something."

She grinned, a certain, mischievous grin I only ever saw when we were alone. "You'll cook something?"

"I'll make us some sandwiches," I admitted.

We sat around in the dark eating roast beef sandwiches and drinking beer and talking about our college years. It seemed the safest subject. After a while we moved to the scratchy sofa in the living room. She had three beers, which was one more than her limit, but I didn't even think to stop her. I just watched her body loosen and a smile settle across her lips. I was trying to convince myself that we were back in the past, when she was still the happiest person I knew.

"Do you remember that outing club trip to Great Pond?" she asked, her voice a little too loud.

"The one where Ted and Lisa hooked up?"

"And they rolled around in poison ivy."

We both started laughing. "I'm surprised that never happened to us."

"I need another beer," she said.

"I'll get you one."

We both stood up at the same time. She laughed, and I laughed, and then I kissed her. She pulled away at first, but I leaned my body against her and wrapped my arm around her waist. Suddenly she started kissing me back. Her hair smelled of faded perfume and of
hours spent in the August sun. When we stopped kissing, she maintained eye contact.

"We shouldn't do this," she said, but there was no certainty in her voice.

"I've missed you."

"I've missed you, too."

I reached my hands up under her T-shirt and felt the warmth and softness of her skin and then I unfastened her bra and she leaned back to pull the shirt over her head. I cupped her breasts in my hand, first one, then the other, and pushed my head forward to kiss each nipple, feeling each one harden in my mouth.

She stood up then and unbuttoned her shorts and stepped out of them and her underwear, too. Standing before me, she pulled my T-shirt over my head, and I kissed her flat stomach above the dark golden triangle of hair. She took my head in her hands and tilted it back and kissed me again, hard. I stood up, kissing her all the time, and felt her fumbling with the button of my pants.

She pressed me naked back onto the couch cushions. Then she straddled me and guided me inside her. I felt the warmth of her and the surprising wetness and I trembled and groaned so loud it surprised us both. She smiled and gripped the back of the sofa and leaned forward so that her hair was in my face. As she moved, her breathing became audible, and her back became slick beneath my hands. She lifted her eyes and kissed me again with her mouth wide open, and I slid my hands beneath her thighs and stood up from the couch.

With her legs wrapped around me, I carried her into the bedroom and laid her down on the bed. I was above her now and lunging into her. She put her arms out for me to hold. She wanted me to pin her to the bed, and I did. Her eyes were closed tight now, and she was biting her lip, and I felt the muscles of her body tensing and tensing, and I pressed on harder until a shudder ran first through her, then me.

Afterward, she curled herself against me, pressing a hand flat on my chest, with a leg thrown over mine. We didn't speak. I thought that I would surely fall asleep first, exhausted as I was, but soon her breathing slowed, and I knew she was fast asleep.

The moon was out now, and the light through the open window made Sarah's blond hair appear to be touched with frost. I watched her for a long time and thought how beautiful she looked lying there and I wondered what the hell was wrong with me that I'd let her slip out of my life. The smell of pine needles drifted in through the window screen, and outside I heard the orchestrations of the crickets in the cordgrass of the salt marsh. After a while, I rolled over and shut my eyes and tried to sleep. But it was no good. In the morning she'd just end up regretting everything she had done when she was drunk. What we'd done tonight would just make it harder for both of us to say good-bye again.

The phone rang just after midnight. Sarah moaned but didn't wake. I padded out into the living room and just managed to pick up before the answering machine did.

"Hello?"

"I need you to do something," said my father's voice.

My heart began to flutter. "Dad, where are you?"

"Canada." The fuzz of static told me he was speaking on a cell phone.

"How'd you get across?"

"Never mind that." He paused, as if listening to something on his end. But I didn't hear anything. "I'm being set up, Mike. They're trying to pin it on me, but I wasn't anywhere near that place. You ask Brenda."

"Brenda Dean?"

"Yeah. She'll tell you I was with her the whole time."

"Who's setting you up? Is it that guy Tripp?"

"Maybe. Him and somebody else. I've got my suspicions." There was a silence on the other end. "Is your phone clear?"

"What?"

"I thought I heard a click. Jesus, are they tapping your phone?"

"You've got to give yourself up, Dad."

"I didn't do anything! They set me up!" He was terrified. I'd never heard fear in his voice before.

"You assaulted that deputy, Twombley."

"He attacked me."

"Your face is all over the news. You have hundreds of police officers looking for you, and they all think you're a cop killer. They're not going to take you in alive. You've got to give yourself up. If you're innocent, you don't have any reason to be afraid--"

"I
am
innocent! Talk to Brenda."

"We'll find you a lawyer."

"A lawyer." He practically spat out the word. "Yeah, right." Then he hung up.

Moonlight had leeched the color out of everything inside the room: the walls, the furniture, the floors. Even the skin of my hands looked gray. It was as if I had woken up inside an old black-andwhite movie, a film noir.

Except that this was no dream. I crossed into the kitchen and snapped on the overhead light. The sudden brightness made me wince. At the sink, I splashed cold water on my face and rubbed it along the back of my neck until the hairs stood on end. I filled my mouth with water and spat it out. Then I braced myself against the countertop and faced my reflection in the window above the sink.

What should I do? I had a legal and ethical duty to report this conversation to the state police. If I didn't, I'd be acting as an accessory to homicide after the fact. I could go to jail. But if I told the authorities about my dad being in Canada--and how was I to know he was really there?--I'd be betraying his trust. And beneath the
anger he'd sounded so terrified. If I couldn't get Sarah to believe he was innocent, what hope did I have of convincing anyone else?

I wandered back out into the living room and sat there in the dark for a while, looking at the telephone. But I couldn't bring myself to pick it up.

Sarah rolled over when I came back to bed and half-opened her eyes. Her breath smelled of beer. "I thought I heard you talking to someone."

"I was on the phone."

"Who was it?"

"Nobody," I said. "Somebody thought they spotted a bear I'm looking for."

W
hen I awoke the next morning, I found Sarah already sitting up beside me, propped against two pillows. I had the feeling she'd been studying me while I slept.

"How long have you been awake?" I asked.

"Not long."

"You fell asleep pretty fast."

She gave me a weak smile. "I thought I heard an owl last night."

"Oh, yeah?"

"It sounded like an owl. It was in the pines right outside the house."

"Did it keep you awake?"

"No."

I slid up beside her.

"Mike," she began. "I don't know what happened last night."

"I got you drunk and took advantage of you."

She rolled her eyes. "Give me a little credit. I was the one who came over here. You don't think I figured this might happen?"

"You figured right."

She rested her head on my shoulder. "This is so confusing."

"No, it's not."

"What do you mean?"

"It means this was a one-time thing. We both know it. So let's quit pretending."

She sat up. "Why are you being such a jerk all of a sudden?"

I had no excuse for myself--except that in my messed-up logic, hurting her now seemed kinder than hurting her later. And I would hurt her later. I'd already proven that.

"I'm just being honest about the situation."

"What the hell does that mean?"

"It means I'm not going to quit my job."

"I never asked you to."

"When you were living here, all you did was complain about being lonely and poor. You kept harping on how little money we'd ever have and how we'd never be able to travel abroad or have a nice house like Amy's. And you're right. We'll never have those things. Maybe you should just find yourself a corporate lawyer to marry, like my mom did."

She stood up. She looked blowsy and bed-headed and absolutely beautiful in the morning sunlight. "Fuck you."

Outside I heard tires rustling on dry leaves, a vehicle coming down the dirt drive.

"Someone's here." I scrambled out of bed and lifted the curtain.

A green patrol truck came to a stop behind mine. Kathy Frost climbed out. From her expression I couldn't tell whether she was bringing me bad news or good.

"Who is it?" Sarah asked, wiping tears from her eyes.